Let’s All Laugh About Abuse Via Twitter

I have no idea who Kelly Oxford is, but she ruined my Imgur experience last night. The mindless right clicking that gives me so much joy was quickly interrupted when I realized that my existence was once again, being pigeonholed.

For some reason, it’s always a bit more distressing to me when I discover that a woman is perpetuating victim blaming.

I will assume that women who are partying, dancing semi-clad, or working for tips are the ones that Ms. Oxford expects to be wearing a chest full of glitter. Myself, I never touch the stuff-partly because I’m an adult woman and not a person attending a Skrillex show. In my four years stripping, I’ve come across perhaps two or three women who regularly coat themselves in the dust. But anyway, I’m not incredibly worldly, having only stripped in the city of Portland, Oregon. And that’s not the part that bothers me, because why would I care who wears glitter? No, it’s the second part of her tweet that gets my g-string in a knot. The part of the sentence that implies what is so regularly stated like fact: that all adult entertainment females have had some kind of molestation, abuse, violence or otherwise trauma in their lives.

I never did. Sure, I butted heads with my parents, but we laugh about our squabbles now. Anyway...

I’ve referred to the following statistic numerous times; it’s the one that tells us that one-out-of-four girls and one-out-of-six boys will have suffered some kind of sexual abuse. At the risk of being repetitive, that means that many more folks have had traumatic childhoods besides my cohorts. (Thank you to TitsAndSass.com for the following chart.)

But even so?

The worst part of this tweet and the general supportive comments beneath it is that the joke isn’t poking fun at the supposed perpetrator of abuse. In this case, the victim is being victimized by being shamed. And that’s the real shame.

Upon Google searching Kelly Oxford, I learn that she is a blogger and mother. Just like me.

Kelly, if you’re reading this, I hope you rethink what is humorous and what is hurtful, and let’s both hope that nothing traumatic happens to either of our children. But take it from a stripper, there are a lot worse things that your children could become. I’d rather dance for tips than joke about molestation victims for free.